Explains what?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cExplains what?\u201d Dad asked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mom smiled, put her big sunglasses on and stretched out on her towel.\u00a0 Grandpa kept staring at the water, mumbling to himself.\u00a0 My little sister was showing off her stupid gymnastics as she walked by him\u2014on her hands.\u00a0 Grandpa and I ignored her.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cStop ignoring me,\u201d Dad said to Mom.\u00a0 \u201cExplains what?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mom answered as the sunshine lit up her face.\u00a0 \u201cIt explains why your oldest son is not here to enjoy the beach\u2014with his father.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My older brother stayed\u00a0at home again this year.\u00a0 He never goes with us to the beach.\u00a0 He pretty much never goes on any family outings\u2014unless Dad stays home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Grandpa mumbled to himself as he looked out over the water.\u00a0 He stood at the shoreline for a good hour.\u00a0\u00a0When his conversation with the wind wrapped up, he walked up and down the beach until it was about time to drive back home.\u00a0 To further prove how annoying she can be, especially at the beach, my sister kicked sand all over my towel and granola bar.\u00a0 Cartwheels in the sand are just a messy way to show off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But with or without little sisters, I love the beach at Lake Michigan\u2014and I\u2019m not the only one.\u00a0 Ladybugs love the beach. Sea gulls, who have never seen the sea, love the beach.\u00a0 But it\u2019s possible that Grandpa loves the beach more than any of us.\u00a0\u00a0 The look in his glass eye, as it reflected Lake Michigan, sure looked to me like love.\u00a0 But whatever I saw in his good eye made me cautious.\u00a0 Twelve year olds might not be right all the time.\u00a0 What I saw coulda been love or it mighta been fear.\u00a0 Either way, I\u2019ve never seen love nor fear that deep in a good eye.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maybe he was looking for something that was supposed to wash up on shore.\u00a0 Or he might just of been remembering something or someone\u00a0just beyond the horizon\u2014maybe both.\u00a0 But nothing floated to shore.\u00a0 Nothing ever did. The only shadows upon the waves belonged to sea gulls swooping towards us like fighter planes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Ooooh, look at the birdie,” my sister pointed out with her toes as she stood on her head.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sea gull swooped in low from the water right at her.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“That’s a sea gull, Stupid,” I said, as politely as a big brother can.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Grandpa squinted with his good eye as though he had recognized something\u2014something he\u2019d been waiting for.\u00a0 Standing bravely before the sea gull\u2019s descent, Grandpa finally spoke up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s a strafing pattern,\u201d he said softly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s a chafing pattern?\u201d my sister asked. But Grandpa didn\u2019t answer.\u00a0 He looked over at Dad, then the rest of us.\u00a0 He looked around at the ladybugs, sea gulls and once again at the waves crawling across the peaceful sand\u2014advancing on our position.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He saw all he wanted to see of Lake Michigan, finally turning his back to the beach.\u00a0\u00a0 As Grandpa watched the sky in all directions before he carefully headed for the safety of the parking lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0by Allan D. Harris [USA] \u00a0pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click\u00a0aici \u201cWho does he think he\u2019s talking to?\u201d Dad asked. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you get off your beach towel and ask him?\u201d Mom replied. It\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[925,22],"tags":[903,1160,1116],"class_list":["post-8716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-35","category-short-story","tag-alan-d-harris","tag-egophobia-35","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2gA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8716"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8899,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716\/revisions\/8899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}